Where Franchisors Require You to Litigate
If a dispute goes to court or arbitration, where does it happen? Franchise agreements almost always fix the venue — usually the franchisor's home turf. This report counts U.S. franchisors by the state named in their FDD Item 17 dispute-resolution clause, across 1,261 brands where our extraction of Item 17 was verified against the filing.
1,261 verified brands · 48 states · FDD Item 17
Key findings
- The state named most often as the required dispute venue is California: 208 of 1,261 franchisors with a verified Item 17 disclosure (16.5%) require disputes to be heard there (FDD Item 17).
- The three most-named venue states — California, Texas, Florida — together account for 34.7% of verified disclosures.
- Verified Item 17 dispute venues span 48 U.S. states, and 42.3% of franchisors concentrate in just the top five.
- 63 of 1,261 verified franchisors specify a non-U.S. or relative venue (e.g. arbitration abroad, or "the county of the franchisor's principal place of business") that names no single state.
Most-named venue
California
208 brands · 16.5%
Top 3 states
35%
of verified disclosures
States represented
48
distinct venue states
Verified brands
1,261
FDD Item 17
How to read this report
- Venue usually follows the franchisor home. Item 17 almost always sets the venue where the franchisor is headquartered, so a franchisee anywhere in the country may have to travel to litigate. The state concentrations below track where the largest franchisors are based.
- Venue and governing law are different clauses. This report counts the venue (the where). The choice of governing law (the which state's law) is a separate Item 17 provision and can point to a different state — and several states' franchise laws override a contrary choice-of-law clause.
- Litigation vs. arbitration. Many Item 17 clauses require arbitration rather than court, often at a named city. We roll both into the state so the geography is comparable; the underlying FDD tells you which forum applies.
- Normalized to state. The raw disclosures range from a bare state to a specific county, city, or full arbitration clause. We map each to a single U.S. state; foreign and relative venues that name no state are grouped as "Other / non-U.S. / unspecified."
Franchisors by required dispute-venue state
Count and share of verified franchisors by venue state, most first. Sortable by count, share, or state name — click any header (both directions).
| Dispute-venue state↕ | Franchisors↓ | Share↕ |
|---|---|---|
| California | 208 | 16.5% |
| Texas | 121 | 9.6% |
| Florida | 109 | 8.6% |
| Other / non-U.S. / unspecified | 63 | 5.0% |
| Georgia | 50 | 4.0% |
| Minnesota | 46 | 3.6% |
| Colorado | 45 | 3.6% |
| Illinois | 43 | 3.4% |
| New Jersey | 38 | 3.0% |
| Washington | 38 | 3.0% |
| Ohio | 37 | 2.9% |
| Arizona | 36 | 2.9% |
| Maryland | 35 | 2.8% |
| Virginia | 35 | 2.8% |
| Utah | 33 | 2.6% |
| New York | 29 | 2.3% |
| Pennsylvania | 27 | 2.1% |
| Nevada | 25 | 2.0% |
| Wisconsin | 23 | 1.8% |
| Delaware | 22 | 1.7% |
| North Carolina | 22 | 1.7% |
| Michigan | 20 | 1.6% |
| Missouri | 17 | 1.3% |
| Tennessee | 13 | 1.0% |
| Indiana | 11 | 0.9% |
| Kentucky | 11 | 0.9% |
| Oregon | 10 | 0.8% |
| Louisiana | 9 | 0.7% |
| South Carolina | 9 | 0.7% |
| Massachusetts | 8 | 0.6% |
| Nebraska | 8 | 0.6% |
| Oklahoma | 8 | 0.6% |
| Idaho | 7 | 0.6% |
| South Dakota | 6 | 0.5% |
| Connecticut | 5 | 0.4% |
| Kansas | 5 | 0.4% |
| Rhode Island | 4 | 0.3% |
| Wyoming | 4 | 0.3% |
| Mississippi | 3 | 0.2% |
| Montana | 3 | 0.2% |
| Alabama | 2 | 0.2% |
| Arkansas | 2 | 0.2% |
| District of Columbia | 2 | 0.2% |
| Iowa | 2 | 0.2% |
| Maine | 2 | 0.2% |
| New Hampshire | 2 | 0.2% |
| New Mexico | 1 | 0.1% |
| North Dakota | 1 | 0.1% |
| Vermont | 1 | 0.1% |
Methodology
Source. Franchise Disclosure Document, Item 17 (Renewal, Termination, Transfer, and Dispute Resolution). We count each franchisor once by the required venue for litigation or arbitration disclosed in its Item 17 clause.
Sample. n = 1,261 verified brands. Ranked from franchises where our extraction of Item 17 was verified against the filing — an independent AI judge (a different model family, to reduce shared bias) confirmed the value against the source text. Brands without a verified Item 17 dispute-venue disclosure are excluded; unverified and legacy values never enter this count.
Normalization. Free-text venue disclosures (a bare state, a county, a city, a postal "City, ST", or a full arbitration clause) are each mapped to a single U.S. state. 63 disclosures name a foreign venue or a relative venue (such as "the county where the franchisor maintains its principal place of business") that resolves to no single state; these are grouped as "Other / non-U.S. / unspecified" and always listed last.
Cite this. Please attribute figures to "VetMyFranchise, Item 17 Dispute Venue Report 2026" and link to this page.
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Venue is one line of Item 17 — governing law, arbitration rules, jury-trial waivers, and fee-shifting sit right beside it. For one brand's full dispute-resolution terms plus fees, Item 19 earnings, litigation history, and a buyer verdict, our 12-section FDD analysis is $49 per report, or three for $99.